https://youtu.be/dwCAAat9jHE

Show Notes:

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hello, doctors and innovators. Welcome to the simplified integration podcast. This is episode number 25, The Top Four Ways To Know If You Are Ready To Integrate

Speaker 2: (00:14)
Leonardo DaVinci. Once said that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. And I agree you see the problem with the way that most consulting groups approach medical integration is anything but simple. In fact, it's the exact opposite. It's expensive, it's complicated. And quite frankly, it's exhausting enough is enough. There are far too many amazing integrated clinics that are struggling well. I'm on a mission to change that. What I've come to find from over five years, working with integrative practices is that simplicity really is the secret. The old saying of less is more, is true. Through a streamlined approach. I was able to create multiple successful seven figure integrated clinics. And now I'm going to show you how you can do the same. Join me as I share with you the secrets to successful medical integration and practice growth. Join me on a journey to greater sophistication through innovation. I'm dr. Andrew Wells and welcome to the simplified integration podcast.

Speaker 1: (01:13)
Hey doc. Welcome. It's so nice to have you back. So today I'm going to address this, uh, this episode is addressed to doctors who are considering integrating, and they're not quite sure if they're ready to do it, or if they're the right person to do it. And if you're, if you had that question, first of all, my head is off to you. Cause you're, you're thinking the right way. Integration is not for everybody. And one of the things that really things that really irritates me about the, the consulting and practice management industry is that so often groups will present integration as a turnkey solution. So integration integration is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. So if anyone is saying, Oh, we have a turnkey solution for you to integrate like run in the other direction because it's not true. The fact of the matter is integration can be complex.

Speaker 1: (01:58)
It's hard. It's not easy. You have to learn how to do new things. And so there's no, um, there's no easy way to integrate. And you might say, well, Hey, the name of your podcast and the name of your company, dr. Wells has simplified integration. And yes, I have simplified the process and made it easier for doctors to do, but I don't want to give anyone the false impression that integration is easy. So you heard it from the horse's mouth. Uh, there is no such thing as turnkey integration. It is a lot of work. You have to roll up your sleeves. There's a lot of new processes and procedures to learn before you can become a successful integrated office. My job is just help fast forward that process and help you from making common mistakes. So how do you know if you're ready to integrate?

Speaker 1: (02:39)
Now? When I was a little kid, my dad was really big into horse racing. He loved race horses. He used to own a few race horses, and we grew up not too far away from a racetrack in Chicago where I'm from. And so on the weekends as a little guy, I used to spend time with my dad at the racetrack and we'd, we'd hang out in a stables. So in the stables, they had race horses and jockeys and trainers. And this is a cool place to hang out if you're a little kid. Well, I always wanted to ride on the race horses. You know, my dad would, would never let me get on the horses. And, uh, there was one horse in the stable that I always got to ride. Uh, his name was, uh, patchy and Apache was like a hundred years old. He was like the most lame tame horse you've ever seen.

Speaker 1: (03:20)
And that's the horse that I got to ride, which was still cool, but still a bummer. Cause I was a little kid, like I want to ride the fastest horse possible. And you know, I didn't understand what I didn't understand as a kid was my dad wouldn't let me on there because he knew that I would get bucked off and would get killed or maimed or paralyzed or whatever. And I never thought that was fair because looking at it from a child's perspective, the guys riding the horses, the jockeys were like my size, right. They were short a I'm like, well, if they could do it, I could do it. But I didn't understand like how like strong jockeys were and how athletic they were. Um, so I just, I didn't see it as a fair thing. I never understood it when I was a kid, but I knew, you know, later on in life that like horse race horses are incredibly strong, powerful animals.

Speaker 1: (04:03)
And thank God my dad never let me get on him. Cause I probably wouldn't be here today. And the same thing is true with integration. As doctors look at integration as this like sexy way to grow your practice and make more money and bill insurance. And um, and one of the worst things you can do is integrate because of those things when you're not ready because of this also just as it is good. The other aspect of it is that it can kill your practice and ruin you financially faster than anything else in chiropractic. There are some huge risks. And so I wanted to talk about this because there is a time and a place for integration. And I get calls every week. Lots of calls from doctors who are considering an integration. And one of my first jobs as a consultant is to figure out if you're even right for integration.

Speaker 1: (04:48)
So there's a series of questions I go through with doctors and there are really four things that I look for. Um, and, and sometimes doctors get irritated with me because I'm like I say, you know, he's telling me now is not the right time to integrate. Um, and I do that. Not because I don't want to work with you is just because you're not ready. And sometimes I'll have you focus on your chiropractic business or something else before you're ready to move into an integration. So here are the four things that I look for and four things to know if you're ready to integrate. Number one is, have you had a fair amount of success already? Now success can mean different things for success. Some for some doctors that means running a thousand a week chiropractic business for some doctors that means having a stable practice of a hundred visits per week.

Speaker 1: (05:29)
Um, maybe, maybe it's a dollar amount. That's, uh, that is your definition of success, but you should have some really key in it. Like your business should be stable. You should be making money consistently month after month. You shouldn't have a new patient issue. Like those are all signs of a healthy practice. So if you're not there yet, um, integration will not fix that problem. So I get doctors who are like, Hey, listen, I'm struggling with chiropractic. I'm not making any money. I'm losing money. I want to integrate because I think this'll be like a, uh, um, a good solution for me. So please hear this integration is not a life raft. Like it's the, if you're not, if you're struggling in chiropractic, it will not fix your chiropractic business. Uh don't if that's you, don't integrate just double down your efforts on learning how to be in front of and running an effective chiropractic business.

Speaker 1: (06:20)
So that's number one. Number two. Are you a good leader? Now? This is a tricky question to ask yourself because unless you're like some doctors, I know like aren't very self aware and I know a lot of doctors who have massive egos and they're complete douchebags. And if you ask them, Hey, are you a good leader? They're the first ones to say, yeah, I'm an awesome leader. Like I have a great team. Like those are the, those are the people. Some of them are good, uh, run, good integrated offices, some are complete miserable failures. And so a couple of things to look for, like, so how do you know if you're a good leader or not? There are seven things you can look at and, and in general leaders have followers. So that could be patients like patients who will follow you. Maybe they they've been with your practice for five, 10 years.

Speaker 1: (07:07)
They come in for wellness adjustments or their whole family comes in to see you. Like, that's a good sign of a leader. Also. Has your team been with you for a while or do you cycle through staff every six months? So if you're like burning through staff and your patients never want to see you again, chances are, you're not a very good leader, but here are seven attributes. What I think are good attributes. And I pulled all these off of the web. So number one, do you have a positive attitude? And having a good attitude is so critical because you're going to have highs and lows in your business and your attitude trickles down to your patients. It trickles down to your team. It trickles down to everything in your, in your practice. And so if you don't have a positive attitude, it's really tough to, uh, to run a successful integrative practice.

Speaker 1: (07:47)
You also have to have confidence. So as an example, I'm a leader with confidence would be someone like Elon Musk. So Elon Musk has an incredible amount of confidence and some people think some people think he has way too much confidence. So look, the guy started a, a car company, which is starting a new car company is one of the riskiest things you can do in business. It's incredibly difficult. He starting a space exploration business and a rocket business and a tunnel boring company. Like all those things are incredibly difficult things to do, but he also executes on those things. So he's not just like this, aren't just pipe dreams for him. And he's actually doing these things, but has a really high level of confidence. Uh, even though he has a lot of people who hate him and don't believe in what he's doing.

Speaker 1: (08:29)
So positive attitude, confidence. The next thing is a sense of humor. Now, whether or not you like this guy politically or not, it's totally up to you. But, uh, Barack Obama, as a president, I would say had a really good sense of humor. So he always laced in the sense of humor, he was known for dad jokes. And again, whether you liked him as a president or not people, he had a huge following because people really appreciated the way he communicated in his use of sense of humor. He did. I think it is a great job of that as and sweet. A lot of people liked him. Um, even like bill Clinton was really good. He had a good like self deprecating humor. Um, and he used that to connect with people. So do you have a sense of humor? Number four, do you have the ability to race embrace failure when you're running any business you're going to have, you're going to fail.

Speaker 1: (09:13)
You're going to things aren't going to go the right way, but do you have the ability to learn from your failures number one, and then to be able to adapt your procedures and your behavior and the ways of doing business so that you can overcome those failures in the future. Are you a good listener? So are you good with listening and feedback someone who's great at this as the Dalai Lama, one of the most influential spiritual leaders in the world. And if you, if you ever follow him or like look at, or watch his interviews, he doesn't talk a whole lot. He listens a whole lot, and he's been very vocal about this. He listens because he wants to understand what people are saying and understand situations so we can react accordingly. Number six is knowing how, and when to delegate, when you're integrating, you're going to have more things going on in your office.

Speaker 1: (09:57)
And there's a time to do those things like roll up your sleeves and do the work. And there's also a time to delegate those tasks. And this is a really a cliche, but Steve jobs is used a lot in this example, as a, as a, a good leader on knowing when to delegate and when not to. So he was known for, um, obsessing over the smallest details and having his hands in some of those smallest, most minute details of Apple, but he was also a good delegator. I mean, the guy managed thousands of and thousands of very high achieving people, all working to, to produce the same goal. And then number seven, do you have a growth mindset and by growth mindset, I don't mean that you want to earn another million dollars a year or grow by 300 patient visits. What I mean is that, are you committed to the learning process to growing your mind, to expanding your skillset, to learning new things?

Speaker 1: (10:48)
If you're sort of stuck, if you're kind of like these guys, like, Hey, I'm kind of stuck in my ways and I don't see myself changing that much over the, over the future. Chances are, you're not going to do really well with integration because it requires a good deal of growth and expansion mentally in your skill skillsets. So those are the seven attributes of being a good leader. So, so far we've covered. Um, have you had success already in practice? Are you a good leader? Number three, is, are you ready for a challenge? And this goes back to that turnkey myth. Like there's, there's no like easy plug and play solution with integration. You are going to have to learn new skills there. Um, especially like for the first three to six months, you're going to be spending a lot of time focusing on your practice and making sure it's going right, uh, training your team to be able to delegate and just have a really good handle over all the processes in your office.

Speaker 1: (11:35)
And all of that is, is challenging. Uh, I like working with, um, doctors who, um, put themselves in challenges. Like, so if you have a history of competitive sports, that can be a really good indicator of success. Um, do you like, are you competitive, are ready to like, are you ready to take on new things? Like all those are, are things that I look for when bringing on clients, um, and helping people with the integration process, then number four, do you have money? So if your, if your bank account is, you know, you're down to your last 500 bucks in your bank account, don't integrate like save up some money. Integration costs money. I'm a big fan of starting businesses without having to use debt or without having to go to a bank. And those aren't bad things, but if you don't have the ability to invest in your business and invest in equipment and marketing and consulting advice and attorney advice, um, then it's just not, not the right time to integrate.

Speaker 1: (12:32)
And my advice to you is if you want to integrate and you have all these skills, but you're short on money, that's not a problem. Just grow your chiropractic business, see more new patients, um, get good at chiropractic, save up your money until you have a comfortable cushion financial cushion to be able to integrate. So in wrapping up this concept, just know that integration is a, it's a stressor, it's a stressor on your business. And that putting stress on your business will do, uh, one of two things either. Uh, when you put this pressure on your system, the system grows stronger to be able to adapt to the new pressure or your office and your staff will crumble under the pressure. One of two things will happen. And so my job as a consultant is to make sure that, that, you know, you're successful and you have the ability to grow and adapt to that stress of integration and not let it, let it kill you.

Speaker 1: (13:23)
So, so again, doc, I just want you to, you know, if you're listening to this and you're, you're wondering whether or not integration is right for you. Um, my whole purpose in doing this podcast, this episode of the podcast is just to give you a realistic expectation of what integration looks like. Um, one of the scary things about my job is I, I talked to lots of chiropractors on a weekly basis is a lot of the people that contact me, um, are contacting me because they need help with their integrated office. And they're six months into integration a year, two years in, and they're struggling. And they're like, you know, it wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be. It's more expensive than I thought it was going to be. It's not as profitable as I thought it was going to be.

Speaker 1: (14:03)
And oftentimes it's because we're sold the dream, but we're not actually given the realistic expectation of what it looks like to achieve that dream. So integration can be the best thing for your office. It can be the worst thing for your office, but number one, it should be something that you should like, you should be able to understand what it looks like. And if you're able to, um, to implement an install, the integration programs, to get you to where you want to go with your personal and your practice goals. So doc, I hope you found this helpful. It's great to have you on here. I really appreciate you following my podcast. If you have any questions or want to reach out, you can always reach me@infoatintegrationsecrets.com. So email me at info at integration integration, secrets.com, and I'd love to help you in any way possible. Thanks so much for tuning in today and hope you have a great day. Bye bye. Hey innovators.

Speaker 2: (14:52)
Thanks for listening to the simplified integration podcast fact that you're listening tells me that you're like me, someone who loves simplicity and the truth is those who embrace simplicity are some of the greatest innovators. So hope you got a ton of value from what we covered on today's episode. Be sure to subscribe and share with other docs that you feel could benefit from greater sophistication through simplification and innovation. If you've got specific questions that you'd like answered on this podcast, or you've got specific topics that you'd like me to discuss, just shoot me an email at info@simplifiedintegration.com that's info@simplifiedintegration.com.